Clifford Brown : the life and art of the legendary jazz trumpeter / Nick Catalano.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Catalano, Nick.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brown, Clifford.

Jazz musicians--United States--Biography.

Jazz musicians.

United States.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xv, 208 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2000.

Summary:

Although he died in a tragic car accident at twenty-five, Clifford Brown is widely considered one of the most important figures in the history of jazz, a trumpet player who ranks with Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis and is a leading influence on contemporary jazz musicians. Now, in Clifford Brown: The Life and Art of the Legendary Jazz Trumpeter, Nick Catalano gives us the first major biography of this musical giant.

Based on extensive interviews with Clifford Brown's family, friends, and fellow jazz musicians, here is a fascinating portrait of a remarkable musician. Catalano depicts Brown's early life, showing how he developed a facility and dazzling technique that few jazz players have ever equaled. We read of his meteroic rise in Philadelphia, where he played with many of the leading jazz players of the 1950s, including Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker; his tour of Europe with Lionel Hampton, which made him famous; and his formation of the Brown-Roach Quintet with prominent drummer Max Roach--one of the most popular hard bop combos of the day. Catalano also shows that Brown was a remarkable individual--he grew up in a middle-class African-American home in Wilmington, Delaware, attended college, was a skilled mathematician, and had wide cultural interests. Moreover, in an era when many jazz players were either alcoholics or addicts, Brown was clean-living and drug free. Indeed, he became a role model for musicians who were struggling with drugs and had great influence in this area with one prominent colleague, tenor sax player Sonny Rollins.

Clifford Brown not only provides a colorful account of Brown's life but also features an informed analysis of his major recorded solos, highlighting Brown's originality and revealing why he remains a great influence on trumpet players today. It is a book that anyone with a serious interest in jazz will want to own.

Contents:

1 The Brown Family of Wilmington 3

2 Boysie Lowery and Howard High 16

3 On to Philadelphia 28

4 The Brink of Disaster 40

5 Rhythm 'n' Blues 53

6 The Month of June 65

7 European High Jinks 76

8 New York and Home 98

9 California Surprise 108

10 Brown and Roach, Inc. 122

11 Back to the East 136

12 Into 1956 159.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-199) and index.

Includes discography: pages 197-199.

ISBN:

0195100832

OCLC:

41070981